Description
Widely acclaimed as Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece, the painting depicts the view from the window of his sanatorium at night, although it was actually painted from memory during the day.
“Looking at the stars always makes me dream,” he said. “Why, I wonder, shouldn’t the bright points in the sky be as accessible as the black points on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we need death to reach a star.”
The artist wrote to his brother about his almost transcendental experience: “This morning I saw the countryside from my window long before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very large.” This morning star, or Venus, may be the large white star to the left of the center in The Starry Night. The village, on the other hand, is imaginary, and the church steeple evokes Van Gogh’s homeland, the Netherlands.
The painting, like its daytime companion, The Olive Trees, has its roots in imagination and memory. Van Gogh turned his work into a symbol for all the Expressionist painting that would follow.
An interesting fact about this painting is that Van Gogh created it in his own room at the asylum, drawing on his memory and the view from his window, since his condition prevented him from going outside. The image of the starry night over the village was one of many that Van Gogh painted during his stay at the asylum, but it is the one that has become one of his most iconic works.
Moreover, although it is popularly associated with the tranquility and beauty of the night, Van Gogh was going through a period of great personal suffering when he painted this work. The Starry Night can be seen as a metaphor for Van Gogh’s inner struggle and his desire to find peace amid the storm.
It is worth noting that The Starry Night has been the subject of numerous interpretations and critical analyses over time, and was strongly influenced by Japanese culture and art, which Van Gogh deeply admired. The work has also been reproduced in a variety of formats, from posters and T-shirts to mugs and phone cases, becoming an iconic image in popular culture.
In a 2014 TED Talk, research scientist associate Natalya St. Clair explained how the movement in the painting hinted at an extremely complex mathematical concept called turbulent flow, decades before scientists discovered it.
In 2004, using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists observed the swirling patterns of a distant cloud of dust and gas around a star, and it reminded them of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.” This prompted scientists to study Van Gogh’s paintings in detail, and when they did, they discovered a distinctive pattern of turbulent fluid structures hidden in many of the artist’s paintings.
The Starry Night ranks No. 2 on the list of famous paintings